


A Week's Leave

by ljs



Category: Albert Campion - Margery Allingham
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8878786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: Requested by my friend ALH: Campion and Amanda, and "fizzy happiness." Set not long after Traitor's Purse.After too long in war-related exile on missions he didn't want to think about, Albert Campion was home.





	

Scribbled missive on torn paper, posted from abroad:  
Amanda,  
Might you be able to get leave from the aeroplanes the first week of April and meet me in London at the old flat? It looks like I'll be given six days of liberty from the post I can't talk about, and I would like to spend it with you if we can manage it. We didn't have much of a honeymoon, did we? Let's try now.  
I'll arrange for Lugg to be elsewhere.  
Yours, Albert

Return missive on Alandel business stationery, with a smudge of motor oil on the top corner overpowering the scent of lilacs:  
Dear Orph.,  
Of course. 17A Bottle Street, the first week of April.  
We can try to manage without Lugg if you wish. Chancy, though.  
I have been missing you terribly. One night hardly counts.  
Your Lieut.

Note to Magersfontein Lugg, 17A Bottle Street, Piccadilly:  
Lugg,  
I'm giving you the first week of April as your holidays. Please be elsewhere than the flat. I'll pay your shot at whatever establishment you choose as your rest-cure.  
A.C.

After too long in war-related exile on missions he didn't want to think about, Albert Campion was home.

Lugg had done his job well before leaving. The flat in Bottle Street was the same as before the war: soft furnishings (perhaps now a little faded by time), familiar pictures on the wall, a tray of drink and glasses, a fire laid ready for a match. 

At the thought Campion looked at his watch reflexively. Amanda should be here any moment.

After hanging up his trenchcoat and stowing his hand-luggage in his bedroom, he ducked into the bath to wash his face and hands. The man looking back at him was not the same as the man before the war. Still blond but with silvering streaks at the temples; thinner now, with stress and war and terrible rations; still foolish-looking, but now with an additional glimpse of yearning lovesick idiot.

They had had one night, he and Amanda, after he'd contacted the Archbishop – a distant cousin – and got the special license. They had wed in the church at Pontisbright, and then presumed on Aunt Hatt for a room that night. In Amanda's childhood bed, he'd ignored his still aching head and his various and sundry bruises, and lost himself in his bride. 

Not that she had had all that fine a time of it, he recalled now with a grimace reflected in the mirror. He'd needed her too badly to take the care she'd properly deserved. But when he had collapsed upon her, her arms had come around him and she'd said wonderingly, "I hadn't thought you had it in you, Albert."

"What?" he'd managed (albeit muffled, his lips against her temple).

"Er, well," his brave and bright Amanda had said, uncharacteristically unsure. "Passion, I suppose."

Campion smiled at himself now and set his shoulders. What an ass he had been in that protracted not-quite-courtship, to protect his inner self, to hide his love. But he now had a week to show her how he felt about her. Passion wasn't the half of it.

The sound of the front door opening alerted him even before he heard her calling his name. He was there, and she was there, and then she was in his arms, and he felt like he was truly married.

……………………………

"Albert, what about supper?" Amanda said, yawning. 

"I hadn't planned on moving until tomorrow, my dear." He brought her more snugly against his body, there in the bedclothes tangled by two prolonged and energetic rounds of love-making, and breathed her in. "This is all the nourishment I need."

"Piffle and jokes," she said on a laugh. "I've missed that."

"No, I mean it." He kissed her lightly, then more seriously. She gave back to him more than he asked, he thought, even as he deepened the kiss. 

Too soon, she pulled away to look at him. It was dark in the bedroom now – blackout rules outside, curtains drawn – but he could see the gleam of her honey-coloured eyes. He knew exactly what she looked like, all fire and competence and energy. Her voice in the dark was husky now, though, and still surprised. "I thought you didn't need me like that. I mean…"

"I know what you said during that nightmare time in Bridge," he said softly. "That I was, um, 'sufficient at heart.' Which shows how wrong you can be, my girl."

"Well, how was I to know better, you masquerading ass?"

"Objection sustained," he said, and kissed her again. "The defendant throws himself on the mercy of the Court."

"You can't be judge and defendant at once," she said, laughing, as she opened herself for the press of his hips. 

"Of course I can," he said absently, "you're prosecutor and judge and my own," rubbing against her, nothing in the way, nothing in the way ever again–

Until the front door slammed loud enough to drown out love and bombs, and a gravelly East London voice shouted, "I'm back, cock! Back, m'lady!"

"Lugg, damn it," Campion said, and rolled off his wife and out of bed. "Where's my dressing gown, I need to kill him, I told him to clear out–"

"And _I_ told him he needed to come back," she said. "Be reasonable, Albert. I might be able to fix any engine going, and you might be able to solve any crime, but, darling, neither of us can cook for anything."

Naked in the dark, he had to laugh – at her common sense, at his own complete adoration of her. "Only you, Amanda."

She could read him better now, too. She laughed, merry and secure again, and then rearranged herself on her knees, her arms reaching out and finding him in the dark, bringing him in so she could press her cheek against his bare stomach, her hands against his buttocks. "You're mine now, Orph. My job to look after us both."

His hands found her hair as she kissed his stomach, as he felt himself stirring against her. "I don't think that's quite the chain of command, Lieut."

"Let me do the thinking," she said firmly, and kissed the tip of his hardening cock….just as his stomach rumbled from hunger. "And now I think you'd best put that away until after some food and drink."

"Spoilsport," he said.

"What d'you fancy?" came Lugg's voice from just outside the (thankfully closed) bedroom door. "I can do you an assortment."

"We'll be right out," Amanda called, and handed Campion his dressing gown.

Once they were both suitably covered, they wandered out. The fire was dancing in the fireplace, sending warmth into the dimly lit room, and crockery was clanking in the kitchen. Lugg appeared in the doorway, his eyes narrowed, and inspected them both. "Well, then," he said. "Got some goods in from Fortnum's, and I can give you tea or Champagne, just as you like. The drink's pre-War, old sod."

"Thank you," Campion said. It was all, but it was enough.

Lugg, understanding the message, developed a crooked smile and a spark in those sentimental black eyes. "Look at the pair of you. Champagne it is."

Even as Amanda put her arms around Albert's waist, she grinned at Lugg. "I thank you, too. We're starving." 

"Love's young dream," Lugg said, and then made an indescribable sound of Cockney mirth, and went back into the kitchen.

Campion kissed his wife's forehead. "You know, Amanda, I finally feel like I'm home."


End file.
